The 10 most disappointing teams in college football, from Auburn to USC and several places in between

Eight weeks into the 2024 college football season, it’s still difficult to get clarity.

WHO will win the Heisman Trophy? Who will make it to the College Football Playoff?? The candidate pool for both has shrunk but still feels more open than it has in a long time, a credit to the new 12-team CFP format that keeps more teams in the hunt than ever before.

While we lack clarity on who will win college football’s major trophies, we do have clarity on which trophies were expected to be in those mixes but will fall far short. More than halfway through the season, these are the 10 programs that have disappointed the most so far.

Auburn (2-5)

In the second year of the Hugh Freeze regime, Auburn should get into the eight or nine win range. Auburn invested heavily in acquiring top players and believed that with the right lineup, quarterback Payton Thorne would return to the version that led Michigan State to an 11-2 record in 2021. Instead, Auburn has regressedTelevision cameras continue to show Thorne and Freeze arguing on the sideline, and the Tigers are all but certain they will miss a bowl game. Like another team on this list, Auburn has shown an incredible ability to blow games it should have won. Everything indicates that Freeze has a worse record (8-12) in 20 games than his predecessor Bryan Harsin (9-11). Harsin, of course, was fired after his 21st game.

Arizona (3-4)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 21

With super duo Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan coming back from a 10-3 season, the Arizona Wildcats were a popular choice to win their first year in the Big 12. However, the transition to first-year head coach Brent Brennan was rocky. This was reinforced by last weekend’s 34-7 loss to Colorado. Brennan quickly stripped offensive coordinator Dino Babers of playmaking duties, but what was supposed to be a strong offense still seems out of sync. All the hope and goodwill Arizona had this season quickly evaporated.

Florida State (1-6)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 10

The Seminoles win the ignominious honor of being the most disappointing team in the country if we had to single out just one of these 10 programs. After a 13-1 season in 2023, a regression was expected, but no one could have imagined that it would result in losses to Boston College, Duke and Memphis. In this new era of college football, Florida State offers a good warning about the danger of building too much of your roster through the transfer portal. It can work wonders, as Mike Norvell proved in 2023, but it’s difficult to be successful year after year when the majority of your key contributors leave the portal every year.

Kansas (2-5)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 22

A year ago, it was a pleasant surprise to see Kansas fall back down to earth in what was an increasingly dire season. Looking at the Jayhawks’ pathetic offense, it’s painfully obvious how much they miss offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who now dials exotic play calls for Penn State. Poor Kansas also has an absolutely brutal upcoming schedule: at No. 16 Kansas State, No. 10 Iowa State, at No. 11 BYU and Colorado. This is probably a team with nine losses a year after winning nine games.

Michigan (4-3)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 9

It was easy to expect this game to come, but still disappointing for Wolverines fans hoping to revel in last season’s championship for a little longer. Due to the poor timing of Jim Harbaugh’s departure to the NFL, Michigan had limited options when it came to adding a much-needed transfer quarterback like my colleague Chris Hummer described in detail here. Michigan’s offense was a mess under first-year head coach Sherrone Moore, who had to rotate between Alex Orji, Jack Tuttle and Davis Warren with limited success. Michigan fell out of the top 25 after last weekend’s loss to Illinois, and with the schedule still including Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan State and Indiana, there’s no guarantee the Wolverines will go bowling at all this season. Michigan has no choice but to move aggressively in the next transfer portal window to improve its offense from the QB position.

Ole Miss (5-2)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 6

In a playoff-or-bust year, Ole Miss didn’t live to the high expectations. The Rebels went all-in this offseason, securing the top transfer portal class in the country to capitalize on the expanded 12-team playoffs. That dream isn’t dead, but there’s no margin for error now after already losing to Kentucky and LSU. This loss, against a 15.5-point inferior Kentucky team that has since lost to Vanderbilt and Florida, is particularly egregious. The bad news is that No. 2 Georgia is coming to town next month. Lane Kiffin has struggled to win big games as a head coach, but he has to find a way to beat the Bulldogs. It would help if he could make the offense more efficient. The Rebels lead the SEC with 41.4 points per game but have yet to score a second-half touchdown in SEC play.

Oklahoma State (3-4)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 17

Oklahoma State is winless (0-4) in Big 12 play after a last-minute loss to BYU last weekend. A dejected-looking Mike Gundy after the game epitomized what this year has been like for the Cowboys. With Ollie Gordon, one of the best offensive players in the country who rushed for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns a year ago, Oklahoma State returned and was considered a Big 12 and CFP contender in the preseason. However, Gordon hasn’t looked quite as good this season, surpassing the 100-yard mark in just two of his seven games. He was hit hard in the BYU loss. Injuries, inconsistent QB play and a defense that gave up 255 rushing yards to BYU have left Oklahoma State in a stalemate that must end this week against Baylor.

USC (3-4)

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 23

The hits keep coming for Lincoln Riley, who has excelled at finding new and stupid ways to screw up games that the Trojans should be winning. The latest Hollywood bust is the centerpiece of Tom Fornelli’s B1G Time this week. with Fornelli writing:

There’s a lot of blame to go around for the slow decline of a once-great college football program, and Riley played a much smaller role than many others. But right now, Riley’s job is to put an end to this, and he’s not. The Trojans are 1-4 in conference play and 5-9 overall since starting last season 6-0. How do they fix the problem?

USC started the year with a win over LSU in Las Vegas that immediately raised expectations. Riley was all too eager to implode that atmosphere by blowing late games against Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State and, most recently and painfully, Maryland. It’s almost incomprehensible how USC keeps taking the lead in the last minute, but it’s why the Trojans, in what could have been a return to national prominence, instead return to the island of greatest disappointments. That’s not what USC expected when it committed to paying Riley $10 million per year.

Utah

Preseason AP Rankings: No. 11

Utah was the media’s preseason pick to win the Big 12, and for good reason. Kyle Whittingham, was ranked the sixth-best college football coach in our preseason rankingsled Utah to back-to-back Rose Bowl appearances in 2021-22. Cam Rising returned for the seventh time and had a contention as the Big 12’s best quarterback. But the Rising situation was a confusing mess, offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig resigned Sunday after a loss to TCU and the Utes appear completely out of shape. In a completely open Big 12, Utah seemed to have as good a chance as anyone to emerge as the conference’s playoff contender, but now there are real questions about whether it will even qualify for a bowl game.

Virginia Tech (4-3)

The Hokies were a popular playoff pick to win the ACC in the preseason, although the pull quickly dried up after a loss to Vanderbilt in Week 1. Virginia Tech had made a controversial decision that could have resulted in a win against Miami that would have made us see this season in a much different light. Still, the Hokies shouldn’t have three losses to start the season, especially with games against Clemson and Syracuse remaining. In the third year of Brent Pry’s time in Blacksburg, fans were right to expect more than they had seen so far this season.